The eccentric geniuses

In a book entitled Letters to a German Princess, Leonhard Euler had a collection of 234 letters addressed to Princess of Anhalt- Dessau, each explaining some aspect of natural philosophy, that is scientific work

Mathematicians are supposed to be very precise and logical in their work. That they are, but how do they feature in everyday life outside their work? Here are some illustrative anecdotes.

The following story about Leonhard Euler is well known in mathematical circles. Euler was a great mathematician of the 18th century and was greatly respected in Europe. He spent an extended period of his life in Russia, part of it during the rule of Catherine the Great. The story goes that the French philosopher, Denis Diderot, visited the Russian court and, being an atheist, challenged the court intellectuals to debate the existence of God. When no one could answer Diderot’s claim that God does not exist, the empress called upon Euler to take up the challenge. Euler found out that Diderot was afraid of mathematics. So he wrote down a formidable but trivial equation and said, “Because of this equation, it follows that God exists. Would Diderot care to reply?” The French philosopher was rendered speechless and quietly returned to France.

While this story conveys the advantage taken by a professional like Euler of the awe generally felt about mathematics, even by intellectuals, one should mention that Euler had also worked on the popularisation of science. In a book entitled, Letters to a German Princess, he had a collection of 234 letters addressed to Princess of Anhalt-Dessau, each explaining some aspect of natural philosophy, that is scientific work, as known in his time. Because of their popular appeal, these letters were translated into several European languages.

David Hilbert was a doyen of mathematicians and had a remarkable grasp of the fundamentals. In the golden days of Gottingen, in the decade of 1920 to 1930, his presence attracted several generations of mathematicians to this university town. However, he had deep disagreements with a few other mathematicians arising from the treatment of the subject. Pavel Aleksandrov, a Russian mathematician, has described how he manipulated a situation leading to a reconciliation between Hilbert and L. E. J. Brouwer who had fallen apart on the issue of foundations of mathematics.

Knowing that a direct approach towards reconciliation will not work, Aleksandrov arranged for them to be invited to an evening meal at Emmy Noether’s place. When all the invitees were seated in the drawing room, he introduced the conversational topic relating to a third mathematician, Luckenwald, whose work both Hilbert and Brouwer disagreed with. So both started expressing negative opinion about him and found that on this count they were in agreement. Thus, while disliking the third party, the two geniuses began to like each other’s opinion. The discussion ended with a mutual toast to each other.

In a day and age when women were not encouraged to pursue higher education, let alone mathematics at the research level, a few names of women mathematicians do stand out: Sophie Germain, Sonya Kowaleskaya and Emmy Noether. In her autobiographical account, Sonya has mentioned that when she was eight years old, her family moved from their city house into the country, and there was a lot of interior work done to the country house. It turned out that the wallpaper ordered from St. Petersburg was not enough and so the children’s room was dropped from the priority list of rooms. Instead, for the nursery, they used wallpaper in the form of pages from a book lying in the attic. The book happened to be based on lectures on calculus by M. V. Ostragradsky which her father had acquired many years ago. Although they did not make sense, the contents of this wallpaper held a fascination for young Sonya who would often study it. She grew up liking maths and later did important work in the subject.

It was when Hilbert was trying to secure a position for Emmy Noether in the mathematics department of Gottingen that the anti- feminist view in the acade- mia was revealed. Despite his efforts Hilbert could not get the faculty to agree, and he burst out: “I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as a privatdozent. After all we are a university, not a bathing establishment…”

Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian genius, had a reputation for sudden disappearances. There is a story of a lunch party in his apartment in Cambridge. Being an orthodox vegetarian he had cooked food himself. After several servings of the food to his guests, when the ladies politely declined more servings, Ramanujan did not say a word, but left the apartment, hailed a taxi and went to Oxford where he remained for a week. His guests were mystified and did not realise that their declining further helpings of his food was seen by Ramanujan as an insult.

We end with this apocryphal story of Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician, who was known for his absentmindedness. He used to drive to work at Harvard in the morning and come back home in the evening. One day there was to be a change in the routine. The Wieners had sold their house and were moving to the new residence that day. His wife had spared him all the details of the transaction and simply told him that they had sold the house and were moving to another that day, so he must remember to come back in the evening to the new address, which she gave him along with instructions on how to get there. Of course, Wiener forgot and, like on every working day, came back to the old house which he found locked. He could not figure why. Then he saw a young girl standing near the gate and asked her if she knew where the Wieners had gone. The girl replied: “Yes, daddy! I will take you there. Mummy had told me to bring you when you returned here from work.”

The writer, a renowned astrophysicist, is professor emeritus at Inter- University

Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune

University Campus